TITLE UNDECIDED
by daisychains123
Summary: One night Benjamin Barker came to Nellie Lovett. What transpired that evening would change Everything. AU. Better than it sounds due to my amazing lack of summary skills. Enjoy!


**Merry Christmas everyone!  
[or Hanukkah or Qwanzaa, or... just... have a good day?! ;) ]**

**Gah. I'm so naughty, starting YET ANOTHER story.. Oh well. The plot wouldn't leave my head, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Quite unlike any of my other fics... it will have a few fluffy moments, but over all I think I'm going to try and make this quite a serious fic.  
****(as I said- quite unlike any of my other stories...)**

**This is AU. Let me know if you think I should change the rating.. I'm pretty sure it'll be fine, but..?  
(enjoy the first chapter, it's laughably bad...)**

**Oh, and any ideas for a title or a summary would be very much appreciated (as you may be able to tell, I'm not very good at them..)**

**Ta. **

**_~Drop us a review~_**

**xoxo**

**Chels**

* * *

_Nellie Lovett sighed as she finished cleaning up her failing business. Ever since her dear Albert had passed (his butchery along with him) her bakery had suffered… good meat was getting difficult to come by, times becoming hard and London's colour slowly slipping away from the city…_

_Of course, colour and laughter was still alive in some lives: in __**their**__ lives, for instance.  
_'_Naïve fools' she thought fondly.  
__More fondly on one fool in particular…_

_The bell above her door tingled merrily, mocking her gloomy thoughts, announcing an arrival. She turned as the fool in question astumbled in, a panicked look on his face. Benjamin Barker spotted her, and stumbled over, grasping onto her shoulders desperately._

"_Ben wha-"_

"_Nellie! I don't know how to do it!" _

_Nellie raised an eyebrow at his flustered state, and calmly led him to a table._

"_Now you jus' sit down 'ere luv, and tell me wa's wrong."_

_He sat, and immediately grappled at her hands._

"_I don't know how to do it Nellie! I don't!"_

"_Ben, 'ave you been drinkin'?" she asked, knowing full well the answer. She could smell the alcohol on him, and hid her surprise when he nodded unabashedly. He never drank. Never!_

"_Why, you silly man? Wha's got you in such a tizzy tha' you turned ta the drink?"_

"_Lucy"_

"_Ah.. had a fight 'ave ya luv?"_

"…_We're gettin' married."_

_Nellie felt as though he had kicked her in the gut, but Benjamin wasn't finished._

_  
"And I don't know how to __**do **__**it**__!"_

_Nellie was still processing the information, her heart ripping itself into itty bitty pieces. "Do wha' luv?"_

_Benjamin scowled lopsidedly; he'd obviously been affected harshly from the drink._

"_You know... **it**..._ _As in 'the night after the wedding' **it**."_

_Comprehension dawned._

_Nellie held back a blush._

"_You mean ta tell me tha' you don't know how...?"_

_Ben waved a hand impatiently, and ended up hitting it against the edge of the table in his drunken state. He shook it out with a curse and said, not meeting her eyes, "I know the mechanics Nellie… I just... I don't know how to… I want Lucy to still love me… afterwards…"_

_Nellie nodded. He wanted his -Nellie's heart dropped- …wife… to enjoy herself._

"_I get whatcha mean Ben, but I'm still confused as ta why ya came ta me?"_

_He took her hand again, and Nellie met his eyes, which were only slightly unfocused, and which were trained desperately on her own._

"_Teach me" he whispered._

* * *

Nellie Lovett sat bolt upright in her bed, her heart beating painfully fast.

She looked around frantically, assuring herself of where she was. The moth eaten curtains feebly held back the morning light, and as her eyes adjusted she could see the bedside cabinet, and her wardrobe in the hazy glow. Birds outside where singing, and the rhythmic _thud thud thud _of one Sweeney Todd pacing could be heard from above.  
She would have to fix breakfast soon...  
Nellie closed her eyes forcefully against all of this, and with a quiet _thump_ let herself fall ungracefully back against her pillows.

_If only…_

If only he had loved _her_…

If only he hadn't married that _twit_ Lucy…

If only he wasn't so _hell bent_ on avenging his old life…

If only he would learn to _forgive and forget_…

If only…

…_If only it had just been a dream._


End file.
